The family-owned, German business DR-WALTER Group has invested in Estonian tech startup sign.online to support the group’s ambitions to digitally transform and automate business processes in the insurance industry.
sign.online allows customers to digitally create and sign contracts in an easy, fast and secure way and execute these agreements across borders, safe in the knowledge of compliance with various national laws on electronic signatures.
The parties executed the share purchase agreement online using Estonia’s e-notary service. This was possible because both Martin Nørgaard Gregersen (CEO of sign.online) and Reinhard Bellinghausen (CEO of DR-WALTER Group) are e-residents of Estonia and thus have Estonian Government-issued digital identities.
The e-notary service was launched in Estonia in 2021 out of necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure citizens and businesses could continue to conduct notary transactions despite restrictions on travel and movement. Using the online e-notary self-service portal, Estonian citizens, residents, and e-residents can book appointments with Estonian notaries, remotely verify their identities, and confirm transactions or sign contracts. There is no need for a physical visit to a notary’s office in Estonia. Plus, the e-Notary system integrates with various state registers and enables secure communication for notarial services.
Here is how the e-notary appointment between DR-WALTER and sign.online went down.
The Estonian notary launched the call from Tallinn at 10am CET. DR-WALTER Group joined the online notary call from Germany and Martin joined from a vacation in Poland.
The notary appointment proceeded as usual if it were an in-person appointment. Between 10 and 11, the notary took the parties through the share purchase agreement and investment proposal. Once she was satisfied all was in order with the contract, she asked each party to digitally sign the agreements. Both Martin and Reinhard could quickly and easily sign the agreement using Digidoc software and their e-resident digital identity cards.
About half an hour after the appointment, Martin from sign.online had already received from the Estonian notary the invoice for her services and the state fee of €25 (required to process the case). Martin used sign.online’s business bank account with Wise to transfer the fee to the notary. It arrived in 5 seconds.
By 15:31 the same day, Estonia’s public e-Business registry was updated with the new shareholdings. That’s only 4 hours and 31 minutes after signing!
Martin enthused about the procedure:
“It’s affordable, fast, and secure. Estonia offers the most amazing Government-as-a-Service in the world. The mission of sign.online is to bring Estonian Gold-standards in digital signing to the rest of the world thus supporting global mobility and borderless business.”
Reinhard’s reaction was similarly enthusiastic:
“I’m excited about our investment into sign.online – for all the possibilities it can bring to our business. The e-notary process we experienced to purchase the shares precisely demonstrates the digital efficiencies we are looking for across our group of insurance companies. Estonia has set the gold standard in seamless services between government, business, and its citizens. Investing in Estonian startup sign.online, which is focused on digitally transforming and automating contract signing processes for its business and government clients across Europe, was really a non-brainer for us.”
DR-WALTER Group is already taking advantage of sign.online’s digital signature platform, having recently launched a turnkey solution enabling batch signing of hundreds of contract addenda simultaneously. This has saved the business time, costs, and reams of paper, and also raised trust and credibility in dealings with suppliers. There are already plans to roll out the solution across different internal and customer-facing procedures within the group.
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Written by: Hannah Brown (Chief Content Strategist) on behalf of sign.online